The Dragonborn regrets
by The Eternal Guest
Summary: Having hunted down the dragons and killed Alduin, the Dragonborn has absorbed dozens of Dragon's souls. And they're not happy about being killed by their Brother. Part of my "What if the Dragonborn regrets what (s)he's done?" phase.
1. Chapter 1

"Where," Crylas enunciated clearly, obviously doing his best not to sound as drunk has he was, "do evil souls go when they die?"

It was late at night, in the last days of Last Seed. In one of his _episodes_ the Dragonborn had drunk until he was almost completely hammered. It was an all-time first though, for someone to witness it. All the other times, he had headed to one of his estates in the country, far from the cities, to drink. But this time, for some reason, he found himself in Breezehome, his faithful Housecarl watching him drink himself into a stupor.

"That depends on in what way they were evil, I suppose, why?" Lydia answered the seemingly random question.  
"What does it depend on?" Crylas said, throwing an empty bottle to the ground and opening a new one.

"Well, if you're a werewolf you go to Hircine, a vampire to Molag Bal, a Dark Brotherhood assassin to Sithis-" she started.  
"- what about a kinslayer?" the drunk interrupts her.  
"I... I don't know. Why do you ask?"

"I still hear them, their cries. They all ask me why... I didn't understand them before, but I hear and understand them now... I understand..." Crylas trailed off, and took another big swig from his bottle.  
"Who do you hear?" Lydia said compassionately, silently wondering what this had to do with kinslaying, but assuming it was just a drunk tangent.

"The Dragons. Their Voices go on and on... I always hear them, I can't sleep, I can't focus!" he shouted and threw his empty bottle at the wall, instantly grabbing another.  
"What do you mean?"

"I devoured their souls... Their souls are inside me, and they know what I did. 'Druv Zeymah', they shout, 'Druv drey hi grut zey!' and other things. They all sound so pained..."  
"What do those things mean?" Lydia asked, understandably not as well-versed in Dovahzul, the language of Dragons  
"Why brother! Why did you betray me?" and Lydia fell silent.

"And I can't make them stop." he said in a small voice, and passed out.

Lydia had absolutely no idea what to do. This was not part of her training as a soldier. This was not part of her training as a Housecarl. What in Oblivion was she going to do when he woke up?

Putting that aside for the moment, Lydia focussed on immediate needs. She dragged her Thane up the stairs to his bed, and she laid him in it. She headed back downstairs after that, to clear up the broken glass and empty bottles that the Dragonborn had left behind.

All of that attended to, she sat down and thought. What was she going to do the next morning? Should she ignore it, pretend it hadn't happened and go on as they had? But that went against her sworn oath as a Housecarl, to bear her Thane's burdens, physical or otherwise.

She doubted though, that any other Housecarl had had a problem quite like this one. She had almost made up her mind to just leave it be, see if it happened again, when she heard noise from upstairs, where her Thane slept.

He was writhing around in his bed, muttering loudly all the time. "Krosis, Krosis! Zu'u drey ni mindok! Unslaad Krosis!" he almost seemed to whimper.  
Lydia didn't know most of those words, but she knew 'Unslaad Krosis', it being an often uttered phrase by Draugr that she had asked Crylas about out of curiosity. 'Eternal sorrow'. The closest thing Dovahzul, the Dragon Language, has to an apology.

And she knew, she couldn't leave him to suffer alone.

 **Author's note** : I was being bothered by the whole "Soul of a Dragon, Magic of Dragons, now go kill them all!" thing, so I decided to punish Crylas for killing all his kin. On a side-note, wouldn't it be awesome if you could _join_ the Dragons? Same with Oblivion, if you could join the Mythic Dawn, and, by extension, Mehrunes Dagon, that would add so much fun! If I get enough (read: any) reviews, I'll write the follow up!


	2. The Morning After

Lydia didn't sleep well that night. In fact, she didn't sleep at all. She tried, of course. But whenever she was lying down in her bed and trying to clear her mind, drift to sleep, her mind wandered instead. Not very far; it came to rest only fifty feet from her, just down the hall, with Crylas. She couldn't help but wonder what dreams could be so horrible, so guilt-laden, that they could reduce the man who travelled to Sovngarde and back to whimpering and thrashing about helplessly.

That was why the next morning found her sitting at the table, absently drinking some water and eating some bread, when her Thane came down clutching his head.  
"By the Nine..." he muttered, "Please tell me we have a healing potion somewhere."  
She gestured over to the dresser, where a red vial lay, as she wondered how she'd broach the subject of last night.

His head cleared, the Dragonborn sat opposite Lydia, and grabbed a piece of bread for himself.  
"I'm," he cleared his throat, "I'm sorry you had to see, well, yesterday." he started, "I normally feel them coming, but yesterday..." he stopped, seeming to wonder how he'd continue.

"The Voices." Lydia intoned.  
Crylas head snaps up so quickly it's a miracle his neck doesn't snap. "How do you know?" his voice snaps, "Did Danica say anything?"  
"Danica? She knew?" Lydia filed away this information. She'd by speaking with the priest soon. Very soon. "She said nothing to me. You did."

"What? I didn't... Ah, while I was drunk, hmm?" he said, understanding dawning. "Well, what do you plan to do now?" he asked, knowing Lydia wouldn't just forget about it as he wished she would. Oh how he wished she would.

"Am I a bad Housecarl?" said Lydia, sounding frustrated.  
Confused by the seeming non-sequitur, Crylas replied, "No, why?"  
"Have I ever broken any of my oaths as Housecarl? Been your sword and shield? Guarded your person and property?" she asked him.  
"No, but what does that have to do with this?"  
"I am sworn to uphold your burdens, Thane. Physical and otherwise. Why didn't you tell me?" she asked, sounding almost upset.

"Because I shouldn't feel like this!" he burst, "I'm the Dragonborn, I'm meant to kill the bloody dragons, not feel sorry about them! I'm meant to be the fucking hero of Skyrim! I can't be _weak_!" he spat the word like a curse.  
"Admitting I feel bad about killing Dragons is saying I regret killing them, and saying I regret killing them is regretting SAVING SKYRIM! How do you think people will react when the Dragonborn wishes they'd died rather than the Dragons?" he seemed to collapse then, slumping back in his seat. "I shouldn't hear them. I shouldn't mourn them. I can't!"

"Did you think I would turn on you for that? For mourning your slain kin?" she questioned, tactfully neglecting to mention he'd slain them.  
"For choosing them over you?" he said quietly.  
"Family is family, Dragonborn. If I had to choose between my family and the world, I don't think my choice would have been as honourable as yours."

"Would everyone understand that though?" he asked, his voice soft.  
"No." Lydia said bluntly. "But I'm not asking you to tell everyone, I'm asking you to tell me."

And he did. He told her how it had started, the death of Mirmulnir outside Whiterun, who shouted "Dragonborn, No!" as he died. He told her how the voices became louder and louder, more incessant, more intrusive. All coming to a horrifying peak when he finally killed Alduin. But it wasn't a peak. It went up, but not down. It stayed there, at that unbearable level, until he snapped. He tried to drink himself to Oblivion, literally. He robed and hooded himself, bought as much mead as he could get his hands on, rented an inn room and drank. And drank. And drank.

When he woke the next morning, he was both horrified and ecstatic. Horrified, because he remained alive, ecstatic, because the Voices had _stopped_. It was finally quiet.  
When they came back, he almost sobbed. The drink had quieted them, not silenced. And that was why, every three months, he would head to Lakeview manor, send the steward away, and drink. But three months turned to two and a half, which became two. Then two became one and a half, and now, apparently, one.

"Why didn't you ask people for help? If not me, why not... Why not [i]anyone[/i]?" Lydia asked, truly upset.  
"You think drinking myself to death was the first option? I went to Paarthunax," he laughed bitterly, a harsh, biting sound, "and he just glared at me. Asking me how I dared to ask _him_ 'the one dragon I didn't kill', for help in getting over the ones I did kill. He looked me in the eye and told me I deserved it."  
Lydia seriously considered heading over to High Hrothgar.  
"And Danica?" she asked instead.

"She tried, bless her, of course she tried! She can't stand to see anyone hurt! I was at the temple for two days, praying at the altar of Kynareth with her, and all she could say was "The Gods alone will not save you in this instance", not even the Gods care anymore!" he said, sounding completely despondent. "The Daedra can't help me either, I asked Vaermina, but all she could say was that the Nightmares didn't come from her. And soon, the mead won't help either. I don't know what to do next..." as he said this, his eyes glided towards his alchemy lab, looking guilty.

"Why are you looking so guilty?" Lydia asked suspiciously, and when his eyes darted to the alchemy lab she rushed there and looked around. "I wasn't going to use it!" shouted Crylas desperately.  
"Then why do you have it?" Lydia said, returning with three small bottles.  
"Just in case..." muttered Crylas.  
"Why would you even consider doing _that_ to yourself?" she screamed, gesturing at the bottles, "Do you even know how hard it is to stop using it when you start?"

"It's been done." said the Dragonborn indignantly, "I'm not an idiot!"  
"IT'S BEEN DONE ONCE! ONCE! How is that a guarantee? Please... I can't go through that again."  
"Again?" the Dragonborn asked, curiosity getting the better of him.  
"Skooma killed my brother. Drove him mad, and he attacked the jarl who he thought had stolen it from him." she said sadly.  
"I'm... I'm sorry. I didn't know." Crylas said, shocked.  
"It's fine. Just... Just don't do it to yourself." she said.

Nodding, Crylas swept the bottles from the table, shattering them.  
"Thank you." Lydia said softly, sighing with relief when the poison soaked the floor.

"But what do we do now? I can't..." his voice cracked, "I can't go on like this."  
"We go to Riften." Lydia said, seemingly out of nowhere.  
"Riften?"  
"Danica said the gods _alone_ wouldn't cure this. So we're heading to the Temple of Mara, together, and seeing what the gods want before they'll fix this."

 **Author's note:** Here's the next one then! Thank you very much for the reviews(four reviews for 600-or-so words? Awesome!). I do wonder what'll happen in Riften though... And why is Lydia so insistent on going to the Temple of Mara halfway across the province, when there's a temple to Kynareth just up the road? Who knows? Why am I asking you, the readers these questions? Am I even expecting an answer? All this, and more, next chapter.  
All ridiculousness aside, I am truly grateful to the reviewers, and I apologise for this being later than I'd hoped, and hopefully later than you'd hoped, but my internet provider was being attacked (DDOS, someone basically overloaded them with requests and it overwhelmed the system), so my wifi was shutting off around eight in the evening, and I normally post around ten. So, read, revel(I'd say 'enjoy', but I'm liking the alliteration here), and review!


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